Basket-style carriers are commonly employed to package beverage bottles. They include a separate cell for each bottle, from which the bottles can be readily removed, and a center handle partition for carrying the package. The carriers are fabricated from a blank which is folded and glued into collapsed carrier form, after which the collapsed carrier is erected and the bottles inserted.
The bottom panels of basket-style carriers are conventionally formed from bottom panel flaps which are foldably connected to opposite side panels. The flaps are overlapped and attached to each other by glue or by mechanical locks. In order to additionally stabilize the bottom panel, forming tabs connected to the handle panel or to riser panels are glued to the bottom panel during the bottom panel forming operation. While stabilizing measures such as this are successful in strengthening the bottom panels of basket carriers, they add additional gluing steps at the point of bottom panel formation and can slow the forming process. It would be advantageous to be able to form a strong bottom panel without the need for forming tabs.
It has also been found desirable to provide cutouts or open areas in the side and end panels of basket-style carriers. Such openings may serve a dual purpose. They allow the lower portions of the bottles to be viewed while in the carrier, which is advantageous from a sales point of view, and they permit the carriers to be shipped to retail sites in molded packing trays. Packing trays conventionally have been of rectangular shape designed to hold four basket carriers, with the smooth inner faces of the packing tray walls being dimensioned to allow the carriers to tightly fit after being dropped into place. More recent designs of packing trays formed of molded plastic make use of reinforcing struts which extend from the tray walls diagonally down to the tray bottom. This effectively reduces the interior packing space if the outer dimensions of the trays remain the same as the dimensions of trays of the older design. The problem is solved by open areas in the carriers which are designed to receive the reinforcing struts without encountering interference from the bottles or the carrier structure. Cutouts in the corner areas of the carriers serve similar purposes. They allow additional portions of the packaged bottles to be on view and permit the carriers to accommodate the corner posts of molded packing trays.
The presence of corner cutout areas and nearby open areas in the side and end panels can reduce the strength of the corner areas of basket-style carriers. It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a basket carrier which has strong corner areas despite the existence of cutouts. Another object is to provide a strong bottom panel which does not require the use of forming tabs. A further object is to provide a basket carrier which is physically able to withstand the stress of being dropped into place in a packing tray despite the presence of large cutout areas in the side and end panels.